Activist Looks At S.F.'s Fabled Past / "Shaping San Francisco" is a CD-ROM with a purpose

Jamie Beckett, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Tuesday, January 20, 1998

Before the Navy, Hunter's Point was home to a Chinese shrimping village.

People once hunted rabbits in the Sunset District.

During the first decades of San Francisco's life, truck farms sprang up around the Mission.

These are among the many little- known facts included on an iconoclastic new CD-ROM to be rolled out on Thursday.

"Shaping San Francisco" is a history of the city -- with a distinctly activist bent, including an extensive labor history and a detailed account of San Francisco's natural history.

"We wanted to show the sides of history that are usually not presented," said Chris Carlsson, co-creator of the CD- ROM. "An essential part of San Francisco is its strong contrarian spirit."

Among other striking historical images, the $35 CD-ROM contains a rare 1916 anti-union propaganda film and newsreel footage of Bloody Thursday, a riot over attempts to break the waterfront strike, which led to the 1934 General Strike.

Ironically, as founder of the anti-establishment magazine Processed World, which was published from 1981 to 1994, Carlsson spent years criticizing the dehumanizing effects of computer technology. He once derided interactive computer programs as "glorified multiple choice."

But with "Shaping San Francisco," Carlsson hopes to break the mold of static presentation.

He and co-creators Greg Williamson and Jim Swanson (also of Processed World) don't want users' experiences with the CD-ROM to stop when they shut off their computers. They're hoping to make it truly interactive by inviting people to contribute stories, ideas or even corrections for future versions. They plan kiosks around the city where people can view the CD-ROM for free and, they hope, talk online and in person about what they see.

"We wanted to use the technology in unexpected ways, to promote a new way of relating between people," said Carlsson.

"Shaping San Francisco" is not the usual cable car-and-sourdough view of the city. A section on food includes the history of the cooperative market movement and the story of Keith McHenry, whom it describes as "the jovial Captain Ahab of Food Not Bombs."

Users clicking on maps for neighborhood landmarks will find some unexpected landmarks: The South of Market neighborhood map omits the Flower Mart, for example, but includes two leather clubs and a brief description of the leather scene.

"That's a real history that people generally don't know," Carlsson said.

The disc also traces other often-ignored histories, with sections on women, African Americans, Jews and Filipinos, among others.

"Shaping San Francisco" doesn't ignore the city's beauty. One section provides video clips of the shoreline, and maps allow users to click on lots of sweeping city views. A feature called Hindsight Continuum lets users see side- by-side photos of how a street or house looks today and how it looked years ago.

An accompanying $17.95 book of essays, "Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture," is being published by City Lights. The book and CD-ROM together are $50.

The first kiosk will open Friday at Modern Times Bookstore. Carlsson hopes to eventually set up kiosks at city libraries.